Friday, March 11, 2011

RhoDeo Beats 1110

Hello, what a day, disaster struck, luckily at one of the best prepared nations of the world, still walls of water are nigh to impossible to withstand. My sincerest condolences to all the bereft.You would not be aware, but this blog gets lots of Japanese visitors, ranked after US, UK and Germany and about equal to France. Obviously my Japanese pages have had something to do with that, but it's also about a willingness to read english, compared to Korea, the country that has the fastest internet structure in the world but who's flag seems to appear as often as Vietnams, a country way down on the economic ladder. So it's about the culture, Japanese have opened up to the west these last decades, especially it's youth and i'm glad i can play a small part in smoothing that path.

Todays Beats come from the Dutch political Capitol, The Hague (There's a tourist - Amsterdam and economic - Rotterdam Capitol aswell) I guess the Dutch don't like centralist power structures, unfortunately these days that culture is under ever more pressures from Brussels EU and populist politicians, seducing the uncertain masses. Well let's keep it light for saturdaynight.

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I-F (short for Inter-Ference; real name Ferenc E. van der Sluijs) is a producer and DJ based in The Hague, The Netherlands. He is a former member of the Dutch electro pioneers Unit Moebius.

Ferenc first heard electronic music when he was 13 and still in school, thanks to tapes from a local discothèque which as it happens was one of the best discos in Europe at that time. "These tapes were the first place that I heard Kraftwerk's "Numbers" and Laserdance mixed with the mighty "Crusader" by Trax or some Giorgio Moroder. It was then that I became aware of this obscure music and DJ culture and it hit me really hard. Because of this, I totally messed up school". With little money to buy records he tried to mix with cassette players luckily he had friends with turntables and learned that way. "For me, there was so much magic in mixing records—to make a long story with them. Just playing a record at that time, I found pretty boring. It had to be mixed. "

Ferenc opened a record shop in The Hague in '93 and that's when he met Guy Tavares from Bunker Records. That was a totally different world, being more focused on US imports and Italian music when Guy came in and asked to distribute records. " I wanted to start and so Guy gave me some of his label's records, which I had never heard before. I was very impressed with it, because it was basically the same sort of Do It Yourself attitude that Chicago's Trax and Detroit's Underground Resistance had."

Guy also did parties in squats in The Hague and he invited Ferenc to come and play there. The music that they were playing there wasn't really available at the time. He bought a 707 and a 303 and started to make tracks to play at the parties. At a certain point, though, he got really tired of the 303 and began to buy synthesizers and eventually recorded "Portrait of a Dead Girl 1," which was his first acid track.

In 1997 he produced the track Space Invaders Are Smoking Grass, which became a huge underground dance hit and is often cited as an early example of Electroclash. The album Fucking Consumer was released in 1998 on the Disko B label, followed by The Man From Pack the next year. In 1999 he also made the mixed album Mixed Up In the Hague Vol. 1, which has been cited by many, as being the catalyst that brought renewed interest in Italo Disco.

Nowadays he runs a record label called Viewlexx. He was also the man behind the internet radio station CBS (Cybernetic Broadcasting System), which got closed down in 2008, after 5 intensive years, but is now one of four channels on Intergalactic FM, which is also operated by I-F, amongst others.

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I-F's Mixed up in the Hague vol. 1 is a brilliant collection, transporting me to the farthest reaches of the universe. considering the majority of tracks were released in the early to mid eighties, these classics are presented in a modern approach that is unparalled. this disc is purely a lesson in deejaying, programming, edits, and electronic music history. i agree with spork 100%. "every track on this cd is killer." A definite masterpiece! (Discogs comment)

This is THE mix CD I would recommend to someone as an introduction to the whole Italo Disco / electro sound. It starts off with a nice slow paced electro funk feel, then slowly builds up throughout the set to some of the more harder and energetic italo bombs such as Steel Mind "bad passion" and 'Lectric Workers "Robot is Systematic". There were excellent reviews of "Mixed up in the Hague vol 1", however i must say I think this vol 2 is even better!! It has some of the slghtly more underground Italo tracks with a fuller and more energetic feel then vol 1, and the track arrangements are perfect, every track blends superbly. I have probably listened to this CD 100 times and never get bored. Its really worth tracking down, its out of press now, but you can pull a copy from the CBS website in their "mixage" section. You will not be dissapointed, excellent TRUE Italo electro!! (another Discogs comment)